1.Ecocentrists criticism of sentiocentrism and biocentrism for
engaging in “moral extensionism”

a.Things get in the moral arena in virtue of sharing properties that
gives humans moral considerability (sentience, life)

b.Instead of assuming that humans are morally important and then
extending moral concern to whatever is sufficiently like humans,
ecocentrists start with the assumption that the earth is morally
important and see what follows from that

2.Rejects individualism of sentiocentrism/biocentrism and gives
moral primacy to ecological wholes of which we are a part

a.Worry: Ecocentrism might be the most widely held environmental
ethic; It is probably the most widely held environmental ethic by
philosophers specializing in environmental philosophy and by
people working in conservation, though philosophers in general
probably reject it

5.To know what ecocentrism morally demands of us need to know
the nature of the biotic community or ecosystem that has primary
moral importance

6.JAMIESON’S CRITICISMS OF THE KEY CONCEPT OF
ECOCENTRISM: “ECOSYSTEMS”

a.Ecosystems = assemblages of organisms together with their (abiotic)
environment

7.Ecosystems are not real, but merely ways of looking at things

a.Ecosystems, like the average Australian (or constellations of stars, as
opposed to stars themselves) don’t exist as anything more than
collections of individual members

8.Can’t tell where one ecosystem ends and another begins (spatially or
temporally)

a.Temporal ambiguity: In ecological succession, grasslands turn into
shrubs and small trees which turn into forests

i.What are we to say of the in between states?

b.Spacial ambiguity: Little ecosystem growing on north side of the
rock in my garden, my garden is an ecosystem, my valley is one

i.What is relation between these ecosystems

9.Do ecosystems have interests that ought to be respected?

a.How are we to think about one ecosystem turning into another?

i.Are the interests of the first ecosystem being compromised and
the interests of second ecosystem being promoted?

10.If ecosystems don’t protect their own interests, why should we?

a.At least animals and plants strive to defend their own interests

11.Are the worries here less problematic than Jamieson suggests?

a.Bad for the forest ecosystem to remove the predators, let prey like
deer overpopulate and eat all the vegetation including the saplings

b.Sometimes it makes sense to protect the integrity and stability of
ecosystems (by opposing global warming)

c.An different sort of ecocentrism–one that favors letting natural
processes unfold on their own w/o human interference also makes
sense(Jamieson includes this value in his discussion of naturalness)

12.Regan’s environmental fascism objection to ecocentrism

a.Subordinates the rights of individuals to biotic concerns

b.Permissible to kill humans to save (endangered) wildflowers

c.Callicott (in early article he now restricts the reprinting of) said:

i.“The preciousness of individual deer, as of any other specimen,
is inversely proportional to the population of the species”

ii.Suggests any individual member of an endangered species is
worth vastly more than a human being

d.Callicott’s reply: Land ethic is supplement to not a replacement of
human ethics

13.*Ecocentrism can’t explain the value of abiotic things that are not part
of ecosystems or biotic communities

a.Idea of rocks having rights drives many to dismiss radical
environmental thought

15.Seems like Jamieson would object (philosophically, anyway, perhaps not
politically) to rights for nature (ecological wholes)

16.Jamieson thinks we need to give up the idea of extending moral
considerability even further and use language of valuing to protect
these other things we care about and want to protect

17.Jamieson’s environmental ethic

a.Extends moral considerability only to sentient beings

b.Insentient biotic nature (trees, forests) and abiotic nature (mountains,
oceans) gets protected by acknowledging we value them in other
ways than “thinking of them as morally considerable” (intrinsic value
sense ii)